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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'It&apos;s time to stir stuff up!',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/03/19.jpg" alt="Cones and workmen ahead" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="dreams">
	<h2>Dream journal</h2>
	<p>
		I dreamed that the missionaries responded to one of my emails, disproving my theory that they can&apos;t send email from their account.
		I guess that was my brain&apos;s way of reminding itself that I need to ask them about that today.
	</p>
	<p>
		I fell back asleep and dreamed I was working on coursework outside the chapel, when I suddenly heard the congregation singing a hymn.
		I was late to enter the chapel and attend the service.
		Perhaps that was my brain&apos;s way of telling itself I needed to wake up so I wouldn&apos;t be late to get ready for the missionaries that were to come over this morning.
		I had an alarm set though, and I could have used more sleep.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			I didn&apos;t see any mention of how a single-neuron network would operate or be trained anywhere in our reading material.
			Did I miss that or something?
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Okay, so if I&apos;m understanding correctly, the difference in training a single-node perceptron and a multi-node feed-forward network is that in the single-node network, what you&apos;re training is the activation function.
			In a feed-forward network, you instead training the connection weights.
			I certainly missed that in the reading assignment.
			Thank you for clearing that up!
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="religion">
	<h2>Religion</h2>
	<p>
		The missionaries brought over two more missionaries today.
		That was a bit unexpected.
		They actually arrived on time too, which is unusual.
		It was probably because the other missionaries are more punctual.
		Normally, they show up about ten minutes late.
	</p>
	<p>
		They confirmed that they actually can send from that email account.
		They&apos;re not like that one bank that can receive emails, but can&apos;t reply to them, so I have to go visit them in person anyway.
		They just happened to be in the area, so they tried to reach me at home.
		Then they confirmed that they did come for pizza specifically to see if they could get ahold of me.
		Apparently they were hungry too, so that worked out, but that&apos;s why they chose my place of all restaurants.
		I thought that&apos;s why they came by.
	</p>
	<p>
		Okay, so the explanation on why &quot;God&quot; can&apos;t lie yet still has agency was surprisingly sensible.
		First, all three members of the godhead can&apos;t lie.
		It&apos;s not a specific god that has this limitation.
		As for why they can&apos;t lie ...
		They, as individuals, <strong>*can*</strong> lie.
		However, the roles they fill cannot lie.
		It&apos;s like how a police officer can&apos;t take bribes.
		As an individual, that person very much <strong>*can*</strong> take bribes and let you off the hook for stuff.
		However, it&apos;s against the rules for them to do that.
		So the godhead can lie, they&apos;re just forbidden from doing so.
		Again, this points to there being someone higher than Elohim making the rules.
		Elohim can set those rules for Jesus and the Holy Ghost, but someone set those rules on Elohim as well.
	</p>
	<p>
		The four missionaries were really pushing fasting today.
		That was the topic of our discussion.
		Still no word on when we&apos;re going to discus the church&apos;s organisational structure and titles as we were supposed to discuss last time.
		They want me to fast for one day each month.
		That would be fairly reasonable, if not for the fact that they want me to do it on a <strong>*specific*</strong> day each month: the first Sunday of each month, a so-called Fast Sunday.
		That means I can&apos;t schedule it for when I&apos;m least going to need my full mental capacity.
		This upcoming fasting day will be fine, but the one after that&apos;s going to be in the middle of school again.
		This coming Fast Sunday will be during finals week.
		Due to the combined mechanics of when finals can be taken and when the learning journal entries for the week prior are due, I&apos;m very likely to have to take the final exams on Thursday, four days prior to Fast Sunday.
		I have to work on Sundays though, in a room with three flame-powered ovens.
		I&apos;m going to dehydrate, and my headache&apos;s probably going to get pretty bad.
	</p>
	<p>
		They talked about how when fasting, you can have spiritual experiences.
		By fasting, you can get your evidence of Jesus.
		I&apos;m not going to lie: I was really blunt with them on that claim.
		I told them if I hadn&apos;t eaten or drunk for that long, I had no way to differentiate a &quot;spiritual experience&quot; from delirium.
		I mean, after a couple hours without drinking, I start getting headaches.
		Without water, I&apos;m not going to be in my right mind.
		Once I&apos;ve had food and water, so I&apos;m feeling better, I&apos;m immediately going to write off anything I&apos;ve seen or felt as being decidedly not spiritual, but hallucinatory.
		They actually had a good answer to that though.
		While it&apos;s possible for a spiritual experience to happen during a fast, it usually doesn&apos;t.
		It&apos;s after the fast, after you&apos;re feeling well and you&apos;re comfortable, that the spiritual experience usually happens.
		I&apos;d find such an experience much more believable than one I&apos;d had while malnourished and dehydrated.
	</p>
	<p>
		They also say that beginning the fast with a prayer makes all the difference.
		If you begin your fast with a prayer, the fast isn&apos;t supposed to be as taxing.
		Apparently, Jesus will give you the strength to endure the fast with relative ease, something he doesn&apos;t do when you&apos;re not deliberately fasting for him and instead just missed a meal for some other reason.
		Additionally, the fasting they want me to do each month is for two meals only.
		I&apos;m free to have dinner, just not breakfast and lunch.
	</p>
	<p>
		Speaking of praying, one of the guest elders talked about how to pray better.
		I&apos;m to get onto my knees, and after I&apos;ve finished, remain there for a bit and just listen.
		I haven&apos;t been getting on my knees, and I haven&apos;t taken the time to just listen after praying all the time, though I have just waited for an answer much of the time.
		Also though, they said that if I don&apos;t know what to expect, I won&apos;t know if I&apos;m being answered.
		It reminded me of the story I mentioned before, of the musician that didn&apos;t think they were getting an answer to their prayers.
		The problem was that they <strong>*did*</strong> know what to expect, and what they knew was wrong.
		It was only by letting go of expectations that they finally understood the answers they&apos;d received.
		So they&apos;re problem was that they had specific expectations, while my problem is that I don&apos;t?
		I&apos;m not sure how that&apos;s supposed to work.
	</p>
	<p>
		Praying for specific things and fasting for specific things kept coming up.
		It sounded like my simply asking for a sign, without trying to put a box around what it means to be a sign, isn&apos;t good enough.
		I need to ask for something specific.
		But what can I possibly ask for?
		The missionaries mentioned asking for help remembering stuff on an exam, for example, but that sort of request presents two problems.
		First, if that help was actually given to me, that would be cheating.
		Getting an all-powerful being to help you cheat seems like the most effective method of cheating available.
		It leaves no traces, and you get full credit for the answers the supreme being gave you.
		In fact, even if the professor caught you praying for the answers, they probably wouldn&apos;t take it seriously enough to hold it against you.
		It&apos;s still cheating though.
		But second, if I were to pray for that, I wouldn&apos;t be able to differentiate their help from my own having actually managed on my own.
		Such cheating may get me a better grade, but I&apos;d have no way to use that as a sign to know Jesus is alive and helped me out.
		The same applies to just about anything I could pray for, unless that prayer was for something that clearly violated the laws of physics or something.
		So what can I possibly do?
	</p>
	<p>
		But then it hit me.
		The missionaries had asked if I&apos;d taken enough notes, as I&apos;d taken rather few.
		I explained that I only needed enough to remind me of the key points, and I&apos;d elaborate and expand that into several paragraphs in my real notes, which are my daily journal entries.
		They asked if they could read over my expanded notes, and I explained about the school&apos;s noxious censorship.
		Much of my journal is composed of pages that have had to be redacted, including any page in the recent past in which school has been in session.
		It occurred to me later that I could email a copy of this part of the entry to them, I just had to leave out the part about today&apos;s coursework.
		I also redacted the part about their usual lack of punctuality, for obvious reasons.
		But anyway, I&apos;m going to start asking for help on that.
		I&apos;m going to ask for the school to send me notice that they&apos;ve reconsidered their position, and they&apos;ve decided to stop censoring me.
		That will be the focus of my prayers and fasting.
		Ending this torment is something I can&apos;t do on my own, at least not without dropping out of school so I don&apos;t have to tolerate the school&apos;s noxious orders any further.
		If this is to end, I need outside help.
	</p>
	<p>
		This request has a number of interesting facets to it.
		Given the school&apos;s attitude, I don&apos;t believe they&apos;re going to retract their censorship any time soon.
		If they do change it, there&apos;s got to be some reason for it.
		The evidence would still be highly circumstantial, but it would speak to me very deeply.
		Jesus would be able to answer me without having to provide the undeniable proof he seems to want to deny the world.
		It would be such a relief; a great weight would be lifted from my mind, and I could continue my coursework with the conviction I had when I first started school.
		It&apos;s a conviction I&apos;ve been unable to maintain while the censorship has weighed me down.
		I mean, when the censorship first started, it literally made me ill.
		I had a headache and dizzy spells for days, due to the stress.
		I&apos;m coping at this point, but it&apos;s still a burden I&apos;d be much healthier without.
		This is something I can ask for and actually definitely want.
		This relief, if it were to come, would be time-sensitive too.
		I&apos;m trying to finish my coursework in peace.
		Jesus can act in his own time if he sees fit, but if he waits more than two years, I&apos;ll be out of school and my torment will already be over, without his help.
		If he&apos;s going to answer this request at all, he&apos;s got only two years to do it.
		If it takes that long, I&apos;ll have the cut-off point to say for sure he&apos;s not going to answer it.
		It&apos;s not me that&apos;s rushing him, but reality itself.
		There&apos;s also the fact that I can&apos;t support a god that would be in favour of censorship.
		Censorship is so highly unethical that any god that could be considered even remotely good would be opposed to it.
		Knowing that I&apos;m in a bind, a god that both loved me and was a good god would want to help me with this.
		If Jesus is such a god, I&apos;m not sure why he wouldn&apos;t help me, especially if he wanted to convert me.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;m going to try to stir stuff up, too.
		I&apos;ll try to draw more attention to the censorship.
		I&apos;ve been mostly keeping it on the down-low, and bringing it up to other students and the professors any chance it is actually relevant to anything.
		When it&apos;s not relevant though, which is most of the time, I stay silent about it.
		No more.
		Each of my unit assignment submissions (which are graded by fellow students), for example, will now have at least one link to a relevant redacted page.
		Anyone who follows the links will see the take-down notice the school sent me instead of the content of the redacted page.
		If Jesus wants to use other students and professors to help me put pressure on school to start behaving reasonably, I&apos;ll be providing the means to make them aware of the censorship.
		I&apos;ll also make sure to include such a link in any self-introduction topics that come up.
		I also removed the links to my redacted pages from the main navigation of my website, but I&apos;ll now reinstated them on Wednesday during the scheduled website update.
		Anyone that visits my website and takes a look around will quickly see my predicament, as well as which school is doing the censoring in case they feel like writing in and complaining.
	</p>
	<p>
		It&apos;s big.
		It&apos;s bold.
		I&apos;ll definitely notice a sign if it comes in this form.
		They say Jesus helps those that help themselves.
		I&apos;ve always thought that if you&apos;re doing it yourself, that&apos;s not someone helping you.
		But perhaps I wasn&apos;t thinking of that saying from the right angle.
		If you can do it yourself, that&apos;s not Jesus doing it for you.
		But sometimes you&apos;re too powerless to accomplish what you need.
		I&apos;ll do what I can to spread the word, which is helping myself, but it isn&apos;t enough to <strong>*fully*</strong> help myself.
		I&apos;ll still need outside help if I&apos;m to finish my degree in peace.
	</p>
	<p>
		This should be a good experiment.
		If a success, Jesus will provide me with a sign he&apos;s probably there.
		But even if he doesn&apos;t, I think being more outspoken about this will make me feel better, so it won&apos;t be for nothing.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="credit">
	<h2>Credit card application</h2>
	<p>
		I received a letter from the bank, and as usual, I felt it for a card before opening it.
		No card.
		What did they want now?
		Did they decide my proof of address wasn&apos;t good enough?
		That doesn&apos;t surprise me.
		Like I said before, they accepted two proofs that were actually basically one proof because they came from the same source, except that because the documents weren&apos;t mailed to me, they actually weren&apos;t proof of my mailing address at all.
	</p>
	<p>
		When I opened it, I instead found a different surprise.
		Check out this crazy exert:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			We&apos;re responding to your request to reevaluate your credit card account application. After careful review, we are not able to approve your application at this time.
		</p>
		<h3>About our decision</h3>
		<p>
			We are unable to offer you a credit card account for the following reasons:
		</p>
		<ul>
			<li>
				Correspondence received, final decision to follow
			</li>
		</ul>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		To be clear, I didn&apos;t cut off the list of reasons.
		The letter said reasons, as in plural, but only one reason is given.
		The reason that being that they received my correspondence, by which I assume they mean the documents I presented, and they&apos;re going to give me their decision later.
		So ... they&apos;re denying me credit because they haven&apos;t told me whether they&apos;re approving or denying me credit.
		That makes loads of sense.
		I don&apos;t have time to deal with this today, and likely won&apos;t tomorrow either, but I&apos;d like to see what the banker makes of this letter.
		I don&apos;t care if I&apos;m denied the credit.
		I don&apos;t need this card.
		But I want to see if they can make any sense of what the letter even says.
	</p>
	<p>
		On second thought, I&apos;m busy.
		Very, very busy.
		I don&apos;t think this is worth my time.
		I&apos;m not <strong>*that*</strong> curious; I know it&apos;s some jumbled letter assembled by a robot.
		No human composed this, most likely, and their letter-writing program is just a bit janky.
		That&apos;s all that&apos;s going on.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="sexuality">
	<h2>Sexuality</h2>
	<p>
		Honestly, I thought the vasectomy might be a bust.
		At least for what I&apos;d intended it for.
		I&apos;ve definitely been feeling much better now that I know my bloodline&apos;s probably gone forever, and I won&apos;t be bringing anyone into this world just for them to die.
		But I wouldn&apos;t say my attraction to members of the opposite sex had increased.
	</p>
	<p>
		Today though, I did notice an attractive female that came into the store.
		My repulsion from females is gone.
		I wouldn&apos;t say I&apos;m as attracted to females as much as I am males, as far as I can tell, but that&apos;s fine.
		I don&apos;t mind wanting a male partner in the abstract.
		What I mind is the thought that if I end up being a good match with a specific person and that person happened to be female, that I might not be able to make a relationship work with them just because of their body.
		I hoped fixing my body would fix my perception of female bodies, and it seems to be starting to have that effect.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
